


Many Mysteries

by windfallswest



Series: Olin/Lands [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Last of The Jedi Series - Jude Watson
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 07:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18116363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: Dating Ferus Olin was nothing Roan could have ever been prepared for.





	Many Mysteries

Dating Ferus Olin was nothing Roan could have ever been prepared for. And it was definitely dating now. Somehow. Miraculously. Not exactly dating like Roan had done it before, but of course, it was Ferus. 

Ferus was a man of contradictions. He spoke almost casually of galactic politics at the highest levels, but couldn't name a single holovid star if you paid him. He was well-versed in philosophy but knew very little about any form of art. Roan had never yet seen him seen him demonstrate any sign of boredom—he was preternaturally polite, even with Roan's bratty younger siblings. And quiet, and sad, and athletic enough to make Roan, who played a reasonable game of hoverball and liked sports generally, feel like a slacker. For a guy who could sit so still you almost forgot he was there, he always had to be _doing_ something. They had already covered three of the seven lake districts of Ussa on foot, propelled by Ferus' boundless curiosity. 

Getting an opinion out of him was like pulling teeth, however. If there were forty sides to an issue, he'd take you through the relative merits of all forty, if you let him. That could probably be laid at the feet of his Jedi diplomatic training, although even diplomats had to have personal opinions, and extending neutrality to restaurant choice struck Roan as going a little far. 

But he remembered Ferus caught in indecision at the café where they'd met and thought that maybe all that painstaking evenhandedness might be covering for something else. _Working at that florist's might have been a better choice than I thought._ Making a hundred tiny, meaningless aesthetic decisions a day was probably good for Ferus, even though it made him frustrated and cranky. 

Roan hadn't wanted to press Ferus on the subject of comming his old Jedi master, because that look Ferus got in his eyes absolutely killed him. But whatever his decision, he'd at least started to talk more about his Jedi training, which seemed to be a good sign. 

At a little shy of twenty standard, Ferus was more well-travelled than some spacers and had probably been in as many fights. There were still some pieces he left out or talked around, things that were too private or difficult. Hearing some of what he was willing to share, Roan was starting to have an uneasy feeling about just what those silences were concealing.

Roan was slowly getting the sense that, however Ferus and the Jedi had come to part ways, he'd been further along in his training than he had let on at first. It wasn't that Ferus was frightening or anything, but if he had been involved in life-or-death situations...that was serious. More serious than anything Roan had ever been through. He didn't know how much help he could be, coping with something like that. 

It was a pleasure watching Ferus start to relax, though. Roan was doing everything he could to keep the pressure off. There was something special, almost innocent about the closeness that was growing between them, which, Roan could have done without all his family, and his friends, and his coworkers, for space's sake, laughing up their sleeves at them both. So he was besotted, okay. Ferus had never learned to be casual about intimacy, and the weight he gave a kiss was worth six months in someone else's bed. Instead of being impatient, Roan found himself drawn to invest the same depth of feeling in his own actions. 

_Depth of feeling._ Talk about an understatement. If Roan was going to be honest, it wasn't just for Ferus' sake that he wished everyone in his life possessed even a modicum of self-restraint. _Or, you know, tact._

Of course, it wasn't just the people _Roan_ knew. When he walked into _Billyon ka Ghar_ , he was met with the knowing smile of Abigail Manx, Ferus' boss and the shop's owner. 

"Hi Roan," she greeted him brightly. "Here to buy some flowers for your boyfriend?"

"Hi." Roan cast around awkwardly for a way to answer that. "Wouldn't that be...kind of redundant?"

Manx gave him a pitying look. "His address of record is still that dire little hostel room; I'm sure it could use brightening up. Something that would remind him he's not a monk anymore." 

"I'm pretty sure even monasteries have gardens," Roan felt compelled to point out.

Manx narrowed her eyes, sensing a challenge. "Flowers aren't just flowers. They're a way to show you care. Because I know some people have trouble saying that kind of thing."

Roan crossed his arms. "Just because when we're in public we don't—"

"—And whenever he sees them, he'll think of you," Manx finished breezily, her smile predatorily sweet. 

"I think they'd be more likely to make him think of work," said Roan, unconvinced. 

"He's in the back," Manx said coolly, switching off the charm and abandoning him as a lost cause. She continued in a more normal tone. "But you know, a little romance wouldn't kill either of you. I don't know how you expect to get anywhere with this relationship if you don't treat it like a relationship."

"Do you know how long he'll be?" Roan asked, ignoring the second half of her statement, because pissing off your SO's boss was almost as bad as pissing off your own boss.

"Oh, you can go on back." Manx waved a dismissive gesture, and that woman had an unending array of unsettling smiles. 

Still, even though Manx's obvious attitude that the universe existed purely for her own entertainment was irritating, she _was_ letting Roan through. Ferus had shown him the greenhouse before, and he slipped around the cluttered work table, ducking through the insulated door behind it.

On the other side, Ferus was up to his wrists in potting soil, half-ducking while one of his coworkers spritzed him with water from a misting dispenser. Aya was laughing, and Ferus was wearing a bashful smile, like he wasn't sure he was allowed to be happy. 

He looked up when Roan opened the door, and his smile widened, knocking Roan back on his heels. "Hello."

"Hi, Roan," Aya chirruped, redirecting the mister back to the row of potted plants lined up on the shelf in front of her. 

Roan jerked himself back to reality. "Hey, Aya. If you're done watering him, do you mind if I borrow Ferus for dinner?"

Aya pursed her lips. "I suppose I'll be able to handle things without him." She brandished the mister again. "Need help rinsing off?"

Ferus tried and failed to look stern. "I think the flowers need it more." 

They left out the side door after Ferus, always fastidious, did a more efficient job cleaning up at the sink than Aya's mister probably would have accomplished. The sky was grey, with storms predicted later on, but for now the humid air was just warm enough not to be unpleasant. 

"You're in a good mood today," Roan remarked. 

Ferus caught his hand, interlacing their fingers. "Am I?" 

"Maybe we should have Aya water you more often," Roan teased.

"If it gets much hotter in there, I won't stop you. We had to open the vents today. Where were you thinking of for dinner?"

"You pick," Roan said without thinking. It had been a long day, and all he really wanted was a quiet meal with Ferus before going home to his apartment and collapsing on his sofa, since Ferus had to go back to work, precluding the option of cutting out steps and collapsing with Ferus on his sofa. Roan despaired of ever teaching Ferus the finer points of malingering.

The smile that had been lighting Ferus' face flattened out as he pursed his lips in concentration, but he cast around until he saw a sign advertising _Bluestone Lake Bistro_ down a side street. Roan supposed seizing on the first option that presented itself was a step up from waffling over baked goods. 

The place must have been new, since Roan hadn't noticed it here before, but it looked cosier than most of the caf-snob joints that seemed to be springing up everywhere with vine-grown coffeine variants from a hundred different sectors. Roan steered them to a booth, both for the shelter of its high sides and the fact that the way it curved around the small table would let them cosy up next to each other. 

"Is everything all right?" Ferus asked.

"Work." Roan made a face. "They told us this morning there's a whole-system upgrade in the works, which means at least six months of debugging, after we get it up and running in the first place."

Ferus grimaced sympathetically. He'd had enough computer training to understand that there was nothing more frustrating and tedious than debugging. Besides the actual technical difficulties, for some reason everybody always forgot everything they'd ever learned about computer operations when there was any kind of upgrade or new technology. 

Roan looked at the menu after giving the live server their drinks order—he'd convert Ferus to chai yet, although one of his few firm preferences was for non-stimulant tea, better at least than caf, which had been the default choice on Corellia. Perversely, Roan ordered the rajma chawal, even though expecting decent comfort food from a restaurant was asking to be disappointed. 

Waiting for their drinks to arrive, Roan cupped his hands around each other on the table to warm them. Ferus reached over and covered them with one of his. Roan captured it, feeling some of his frustration drain away as their knees bumped and he slid his foot forward to increase their contact, although Ferus was charmingly innocent of real under-the-table shenanigans. 

The food did the rest of the job. It wasn't Roan's father's recipe, of course, but it definitely tasted like someone's home cooking. Roan had come back from Corellia recently enough that sometimes he would still just close his eyes and inhale, savouring air redolent with turrmic, safflower, and a dozen other seasonings that more than anything meant he was home.

Ferus was watching him when he opened his eyes. The smile from earlier had made a comeback, but with a wistful slant. Roan caught his hand and hijacked a spoonful of his overnight stock stew, which tasted like someone had actually gone to the trouble of simmering it overnight. 

He laughed at Ferus' expression of reflexive outrage and grinned back, unrepentant. The corners of Ferus' mouth twitched upwards. Roan watched him struggle against it, but the smile won out over his sensibilities. 

Roan's were no match for it, either. There was no choice, really, but to kiss Ferus if he was going to smile like that. 

"I'm not going to be able to persuade you to ditch work, am I?" Roan sighed.

"It wouldn't be responsible."

Ferus did at least sound regretful, though. Roan gave him back his hand and most of his personal space. 

"Are you going to be free for dinner this weekend?" he asked. "It's at Aeny's because Cauvery's wife just came in on leave."

"This is your cousin who works for the same shipping company as your roommate?" Ferus attempted to make connexions back to something familiar through the complex tangle of Roan's familial relationships. 

Roan nodded. "That's how I got the place."

"I'm opening the shop, but I'll be done by noon," Ferus said.

"After last week, I thought you might have changed your schedule to avoid us," Roan teased. Roan had exposed him to the full circus a few weeks ago, with aunts and uncles and cousins all crowded around the table. Roan's family, at least, were getting used to Ferus—but more importantly, vice-versa.

"I told you, planetary coups are chaotic. That was just lively," Ferus said sturdily. 

_Planetary coups._ Roan boggled. "Well, you've got the right attitude, anyway."


End file.
